Plans gel for Bexar sheriff substations, academy

Updated 9:59 pm, Tuesday, January 7, 2014

SAN ANTONIO — Bexar County is pressing forward with plans for Sheriff's Office substations — on the East and West Sides — and it's found a better site to train deputies while it develops a permanent academy, officials said Tuesday.

Location of the West Side substation on Wiseman Boulevard, just outside Loop 1604, still is being negotiated, but the county is close to agreeing on an East Side substation site on Eisenhauer Road near Midcrown Drive.

Training would be at a privately run site in the 12600 block of Wetmore Road, said Precinct 3 Commissioner Kevin Wolff, who's helping Sheriff Susan Pamerleau negotiate deals on the long-awaited facilities.

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Unlike San Antonio, which has six permanent police substations, the county has had none since one at the old Windsor Park Mall closed. Talks have been underway for years to add substations, and funds have been set aside, Wolff said.

The training facility, operated by Global Priority Security, already serves law enforcement and could accommodate sheriff's cadets and deputies until the county completes long-term plans to build an academy.

“I visited the training academy there and was completely blown away by it,” Wolff said of the “state-of-the-art” facility.

The county, which owns 400 acres on Farm Road on the South Side, conducts firearms training there and has makeshift facilities that serve as the interim academy.

Pamerleau said using the Wetmore Road site would help the county decide how to develop its own academy, which will also be a South Side substation.

“With East and West Side substations, and a satellite substation with the sheriff's academy on the south, it provides the kind of coverage that this county has needed for a long time,” Pamerleau said.

Bexar County is seeking a non-annexation agreement with the city for the West Side site, Precinct 1 Commissioner Sergio “Chico” Rodriguez said.

The county is negotiating with developer Gordon Hartman on possible donation of land for the East Side substation, Wolff said

Also Tuesday, commissioners approved more improvements for Galm Road in far west Bexar County. The design calls for the first traffic roundabout on a county road, at an intersection leading into Government Canyon State Natural Area.

The $6.6 million, 300-day project also will construct a bridge to replace the low water crossing on Galm Road. Work is underway to improve the road from FM 1560 to Silver Bells Street.